Originally Posted by SATTSO

I meant to post this sooner...

In the November 24th edition of USA Today, page 10A, Rep. John Mica - whom many of you know as wanting to abolish the TSA - published an editoral for the privatization of the screening force. Rep. Nita Lowey published an editorial for screener "rights" (bah), and USA Today published their own editorial in support of TSA.

What is interesting regarding Mica's editorial is he wrote: "Initial [GAO] evaluations found that the federal-private model performed statistically significantly better than the all-federal model."

In other words, the private screening force performed better than TSA.

His next sentence, however: "Subsequent evaluations have shown the federal-private model performing consistently as well as the all-federal model."

Let's also keep in mind that pre 9/11 security cost about $700M per year. TSA costs about 10x that. Are we getting 10x the value? I'd gladly pay trip of what they were originally getting pre-TSA and we'd be just as well off as we are now.

Let's also keep in mind that pre 9/11, security cost about $700M nationwide. TSA costs about 10x that.

Which means, in the end, private screening performs no better than federalized model. Hmmm


As a side note, the USA Today editorial cites that private screening forces cost "as much as 17% higher" than the cost of federal screening. Sure taxes do not pay for the screening, so who does? Airlines do, thus passengers do. However, it should be noted the lower cost of federal screeners is off-set by federal retirement packages.

Have at it.